


first, do no harm

by papyrocrat



Category: Dollhouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-21
Updated: 2010-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:53:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papyrocrat/pseuds/papyrocrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Dr.  Saunders is nice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	first, do no harm

Dr. Saunders is nice.Most of his patients like him, and they’re surprised when his practice closes.Not many of them believe he’s lost his license peddling prescription drugs, the way the receptionist with the nails insinuates.And he hasn’t, not really, but he’d known the risks of prescribing highly experimental drugs to his patients.So when he hands in his final report on their side effects (confusion, muscle weakness, rare euphoria and rarer suicidal ideation, and of course dry mouth), he’s polite and friendly to the woman who accepts his report, even when she strikes too close to the bone with her pointed but delicate inquiry as to how the malpractice suits were proceeding.

He asks if there’s anything else he can do for the company, but it was a wild and desperate shot in the dark, so he’s surprised when she smiles.“As it turns out, Dr. Saunders, Rossum finds itself in the market for a House doctor.We hear your schedule has recently cleared up.”

*

He gives the Dolls suckers after their post-engagement checkups.It’s a harmless indulgence, and old habits die hard in old pediatricians.He can’t tell if it makes most of them happy.Some of them can’t choose which one to pick, or need to be told how to eat one.Somehow, that disturbs him less than the way Alpha takes two and breaks them with his teeth, or the way Whiskey dutifully matches her sucker to her tank top, huge sweet eyes pleading for his approval.

*

He thinks he’s finally convinced Adelle to let him sedate them when they’re hurting or having some sort of as-yet unclassified episode, the type young Dr. Brink won’t admit exists.So he runs into the imprint room when he hears the screams.

*

In all the chaos, they’ve turned the imprint room into a triage/morgue.Whiskey cries on Topher’s couch as Adelle pats gently at her face and the surviving handlers carry Dr. Saunders into the chair.Hearn tries to avoid the sticky patches which reach all the way down the doctor’s side, and his manipulations shift the bag off the doctor’s face.

Whiskey understands nothing, Adelle thinks, but those enormous eyes see everything, so she’s not particularly surprised when Whiskey reacts, mouth so round her cheeks split open even farther, screams with her whole tiny frame.It’s more unnerving when she curls up against the corner of the couch and starts whispering Doll truths like prayers.At least it keeps her busy during the brain scan.

The light from the imprint room fades, and Whiskey opens her eyes.“Dr. Saunders is nice,” she whispers earnestly, and then her lip quakes again.

“Yes, my dear,” Adelle replies kindly, “and so are you.Would you like a treatment?”

Whiskey nods gratefully.She enjoys her treatments.

*

He monitors Claire’s movements.You wouldn’t think he could be this subtle, but that’s the advantage of being him.He hovers during the Actives’ post-engagement appointments.He argues with her diagnoses, even when she’s right, to see if she can stand up under pressure, marshal counter-arguments.On one notable occasion she throws him out of the lab.

When she suggests they give the Actives what they need, he fixes his eyes on Adelle’s screen saver.He wonders what it is she needs.

*

She wakes up sweating every hour, every night after Alpha breaks into the house.She roams around the House instead, back always to the wall, searching for Whiskey.She’s on the trail of a missing girl, and resents everyone in her life before (before what?She can’t remember) who isn’t.She delves into the wardrobe room, and sure enough, there’s a rack of clothes in just her size.It’s full of naughty schoolgirl uniforms, and lingerie, and not a few outfits she wouldn’t know how to put on.She takes a few things back to her quarters, and then buries them in her closet.

She’s always tired, but she prepares Victor for his surgery gently and efficiently, and worries until the surgeons bring him back for post-op.He takes up all her attention for a few days, on Adelle’s orders, and says kind things until she sends him out to be his best.He takes two suckers and gives the red one to Sierra, and she locks the door for a moment to be alone with her petty jealousy.

She hates Topher more every day as she gets more and more exhausted.She can feel every jump on his trampoline; her ears are tuned to the screeching pitch of his voice.He distracts her with his breathing when she’s treating the other Actives.She wonders if it’s her imprint rotting at the edges, or Topher doing it on purpose to keep her away.Surely if he were that annoying to the rest of the world someone would have killed him by now.She toys with the idea of running away just to get away from his hateful face, from the Doll he sees when he studiously looks elsewhere at staff meetings, but the thought drives her to her own medicine cabinet, so instead she puts rats in his office, viruses in his computer, and laxatives in his chocolate milk.She wants to be in his head as deeply as he is in hers.She wonders what she hopes to find once she’s in there.

*

When she finally bolts, she drives until she realizes she’s forgotten where she came from, and the panic sets in.It’s even worse than she expected.She takes two anxiety pills, and then four, but she’s still shaking when Boyd finds her.

*

She dozes off first after they make love that night.It can’t have been too long before his deep voice wakes her up, telling her he’s proud of her.She’s only barely out of sleep, too vulnerable to lie, so she tells him he shouldn’t be.His huge hand slides gently down her cheek and towards the back of her neck as he promises she’ll be okay.She rolls into his arms, and smiles, and murmurs that she knows.

*

Claire keeps busy.She treated sick, stray cats for a while, until she lost control of the voice in her left ear, the one that always reminded her she was one herself.She’s learning how to cook from the television.She looks out the window until the sunlight and height and activity overwhelm her.She lasts a few minutes longer every day.She still doesn’t want to go out there, but thinking about it doesn’t make her cry any more.

She’s never had to think about money, always assumed her paycheck was deposited electronically and mysteriously never needed anything, so she doesn’t ask too many questions when he leaves a few credit cards and tells her to order whatever she needs.She buys beautiful dresses, volumes of Shakespeare, subscriptions to medical journals.This is what people do, she tells herself, learn for their own good, not for anyone else.But the urge to take care of someone is too strong, so she fixes Boyd’s shoulder, and then tells the neighbor with the bad back that she’s a physical therapist, so he should come over any time.

He doesn’t often talk about work at home, and she can’t tell if she’s grateful for that.She worries about the Actives without knowing if it’s kindness or predetermination.She thinks about them all the time.She doesn’t have family to miss, but she supposes it’s like that.Victor may be a G.I. Joe, and Tango a Barbie, and Echo a Russian nesting doll, but she’s a brittle, scratched-up china doll, and she spends her days waiting to fall from her shelf.

Every night he tells her he’s proud of her, and every night she demurs.But it makes her feel calmer all the same.

*

She hates herself for how relaxed she feels when she walks back into the Dollhouse, but she can’t help it, can’t stop the exhale that comes from every corner of her mind.She loathes that she can walk into her office and find a q-tip by touch.She hates Topher, hates the sight and smell of him.Her skin – well, Whiskey’s skin, but she doesn’t think about that – crawls at the sound of his voice.But she teases and smiles as she fixes his lip.

Because Dr. Saunders is nice.

 


End file.
